Quick Reflections on a Storm
Things that I have learned the past few days:
1) I dislike winter very much. Not that I won't whine about being so hot that blinking causes sweating, but I much PREFER to be hot. I love the sounds of summer, the feel of a soft breeze through the windows, the shadows made when the sun bends in the afternoon.
2) I require indoor plumbing. I have been thinking about Little House on the Prairie the past few days, and what it must have been like to survive winters back in the day. On our street, here in first world America, we can't use our bathrooms when the power goes out. While the boys seem to enjoy the art of peeing into the wind, I just don't dig that sort of thing. Just watching the dog cop a squat in the snow made my girly parts cold. And don't get me started on the other thing. I'll hang on til spring before I will dig a hole.
3) There's such a thing as TOO much togetherness. This is actually something I imagine my neighbors were thinking when we took them up on their casual offer to sleep in their living room on the second night of Nemo. You get to know a lot about people when you sleep in the same room. And this was after already spending close to 30 hours together. At breakfast Sunday morning, our neighbors' 9 year old daughter looked at my ten year old son and said, "I don't want to live with you anymore."
But, aside from those little gripes, I learned that I am surrounded by the generosity and kindness of family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. The sun does come up, even if you can't see it past the snow stuck on the window screens. And when it does, you can make angels.